From the Founder | 5 Things Grow Therapy Looks for in Every New Hire
Grow Therapy’s engineering leader breaks down the 5 traits they actually hire for—bias for action, ownership, curiosity, product pride, and mission alignment.
Wellfound Blog
Founder Stories
Firsthand lessons on building companies, products, and teams from startup founders.
Latest articles
From the Founder | Building AI That Shows Its Work: Kepler's Bet on Transparency Over Magic
Why Kepler separates AI reasoning from deterministic code to eliminate hallucinations. A founder interview on building trust in AI for finance and beyond.
From the Founder | How General Assembly Became an AI Skills Leader by Listening to Inbound
After ChatGPT, General Assembly’s market shifted from developers to entire organizations. Here’s how they scaled AI training demand—and who thrives in that environment.
Cowboy, Confrontation, and $100M: How Tennr Hires for Extreme Ownership
Tennr rejects generic values like “customer obsession” in favor of Cowboy and Confrontation. Their CEO explains how extreme ownership built a $100M company—and who thrives in it.
From the Founder | Why Is Getting an MRI Harder Than Booking an Airbnb?
After his father’s delayed cancer diagnosis, OneImaging’s founder set out to fix radiology. Here’s how they’re rebuilding healthcare—and who they want to hire.
From the Founder | The Invisible Advantage: Why Mura’s CEO Flew to Manila to Fix the Infrastructure Behind Everyday Business
After building LeafLink, Ryan Smith is tackling a $300B “invisible” market with Mura. Inside his approach to hiring, speed, and building trust from day one.
From the Founder | The Pokémon World Finalist and League of Legends Pro Who Met at Stanford and Built AI for Banks
Two competitive gamers turned founders built an AI banking startup used by top SBA lenders. Inside their hiring philosophy, culture, and lessons for candidates.
From the Founder | From Zero to $1B: The Typeface Growth Story
Why Work Here is a series in which Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, has honest, behind-the-scenes conversations with founders, executives, and employees about why their companies are worth joining.
From the Founder | Stop Chasing Pedigrees: A Startup Hiring Reality Check
"The startup hiring playbook has a dirty secret: chasing engineers with Google and Meta badges on their LinkedIn profiles might be sabotaging your team."
From the Founder | How to Identify Self-Aware Candidates: The Interview Question That Reveals Everything
Here's a discovery from Siqi Chen, CEO and CFO of Runway, who has built one of the most effective teams in fintech: "There is not a person on the planet who would not say they're high agency."
From the Founder | The Moment Everything Changed: How Personal Trauma Drives the Best Startups
This article was created using quotes from multiple episodes of "Why Work Here," a series in which Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, has honest, behind-the-scenes conversations with founders, executives, and employees about why their companies are worth joining.
From the Founder | Why Smart Founders Are Moving Beyond "Many Hats" to True Ownership
This article draws on multiple "Why Work Here" interviews with founders and CEOs about what makes startup cultures succeed long-term—specifically, how true ownership differs from simply juggling multiple responsibilities.
From the Founder | The Bloomberg Terminal for Labor: How Revelio Labs Is Revolutionizing Workforce Intelligence
Ben Zweig doesn't mince words when describing his vision for Revelio Labs: "I think this could be one of the most consequential companies in the world."
From the Founder | How Weights & Biases Built a Developer Platform That Actually Works
"You're never going to charge a grad student anything," tells Lukas Biewald, laughing about the early days of Weights & Biases, in a talk with Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound.
From the Founder | Why Your Landlord Never Fixes What You Actually Want (And How AI Is Changing That)
"There's a feedback loop that is broken between what you say and what the people who actually make the decisions hear," explains Arjun Kannan, co-founder of ResiDesk, in a talk with Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, describing the fundamental problem plaguing America's rental housing industry.
From the Founder | The Load-Bearing Team Member: How Check Built a Culture Where Everyone Moves the Needle
"There's no job too small for anyone in the company to do," says Andrew Brown, CEO and co-founder of Check, in a talk with Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, describing why he still ships code alongside his 100-person team.
From the Founder | At Thatch, Brilliant Jerks Don’t Make the Cut
Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, talks to Adam Stevenson, the co-founder of Thatch, a platform that's flipping healthcare benefits on its head.
From the Founder | The Anti-Hype Founder: Why TBH's Anjali Menon Rejects Silicon Valley's Growth Playbook
In a refreshingly honest conversation with Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, Menon challenges Silicon Valley orthodoxy while sharing hard-won insights about building sustainable companies that prioritize mission over metrics.